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Any analysis of bottom line has to include an attempt to quantify goodwill and the increase in applications. It's not a simple debits and credits thing.

SoCal_Pony wrote:Topper,

Please do, I would enjoy reading it.

I would think dropping FB and all its scholarships would mean we could also unwind some women's sports, in other words, a huge cash savings.

Also, just wonder what type of crowds we could attract in a watered down conference. My bet is under 12,000 would be the new norm. It would spiral down. No CoC $$$, no reason for it. Who would you schedule for OOC? You really want to see a Tech receiver catch 7 TDs against us?

The Pye model included dropping sports to D III or lower (club sports). There were a lot of upset alumni and it took a bunch of us a tremendous amount of effort to show Pye and his Sports death committee that we would not support the school (not just athletics) if he executed football. Many may not remember how close Pye came to killing sports at SMU.

For all the bravado about dropping to a lower division, there is a significant amount of money that would be lost (i.e. donations) and Turner has been a master of donations. We are one of the best endowed universities in the nation and that has to do with Turner’s efforts. So the loss of huge donation potential is a very real consideration. And Turner loves that money.

I also think a significant amount of in progress efforts (Mustang Band upgrades) would suffer when folks feel they were suckered into donating to the band only to find the University gutted sports (and thus the there would be very little need for the Hub).

Sports may be a loss leader for the university at this time. And for better or worse we have to do our best to improve our support of sports. It seems we are doing that as we are no longer the absolute worst team in college football and basketball is on the upswing.

Myself and my son graduated from SMU. I guarantee you none of my grandchildren would ever see, much less attend SMU if it downgraded football.

The author's article about redpony basically summarizes my feelings about most of the people that post here.

[quote="ponyte]The Pye model included dropping sports to D III or lower (club sports). There were a lot of upset alumni and it took a bunch of us a tremendous amount of effort to show Pye and his Sports death committee that we would not support the school (not just athletics) if he executed football. Many may not remember how close Pye came to killing sports at SMU.[/quote]

I couldn't read past this to comment on the rest of your post, but this is complete horsesh!t, the same ridiculous Pye-bashing we've heard for years. Pye did NOT want to get rid of sports. He recognized how important they were. He attended virtually every sporting event, he wanted SMU to suceed athletically and academically. However, given what had just happened, he was tasked with vetting each possibility and did the report to SHOW how important successful sports were to academic success. It wasn't some revolt by alumni that prevented Pye from carrying out his evil dastardly plan. Pye never had such a plan.

Whether some of the academic reforms were wise in the first place (although there is historical evidence that the only way to get board buy in to keep athletics was to clamp down very very very [deleted] academics), or continued too long past him is another question, but this false villification of a dead man must stop.